Outsider Obi takes key state of Lagos in Nigeria elections

Issued on: 27/02/2023 – 17:20

Peter Obi, the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, has upset the apple cart in Nigeria’s tightly contested presidential election, narrowly defeating the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Bola Tinubu in his stronghold of Lagos, the country’s largest city. 

Obi, a former Anambra State governor, polled more votes than Tinubu in 20 local governments in Lagos.

The outsider secured 582,454 votes against Tinubu’s 572,606 while former vice president Atiku Abubakar – the candidate for the People’s Democractic Party (PDP) – came a distant third with 75,750 votes according to results announced at Lagos collation centre on Monday.

It is the first time since the end of civil war in 1999 that a party backed by Tinubu, governor for the last eight years, has not won the state.

Obi’s victory in Lagos is not altogether a surprise. The city is home to many young, educated people with a large Igbo population seen as supportive of his presidential bid. 

Tinubu appealed for calm following reports of violence in parts of the state.

“The fact that the APC narrowly lost Lagos State to another party should not be the reason for violence,” he said in a statement on Twitter. “As a democrat, you win some, you lose some. We must allow the process to continue unhindered across the country while we maintain peace and decorum.”

However, Tinubu has won three of the five other states that have declared official results so far. 

He came out on top in his south-western strongholds of Ondo, Ekiti and Kwara.

Abubakar, the main opposition party candidate, took the state of Osun and Katsina – the home state of outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari.

A winner is not expected to be announced until at least Tuesday. Following the previous presidential election in 2019, it took four days for officials to declare a victor. 

A runoff election will be held if no candidate secures at least one-quarter of the votes from two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states and the capital city, in addition to receiving the highest number of votes.

On Monday, the African Union observer mission said voting had been delayed in more than 80 percent of polling units mainly because of logistical challenges caused by Nigeria’s currency swap programme.

The redesign of the Nigerian bank note, the naira, caused cash shortages nationwide and voters and poll workers had difficulties getting to polling stations Saturday.

Voters in some states had to wait until late in the evening to cast ballots, while in other states the election continued Sunday.

Observers from the missions of the African Union and the West African regional bloc known as Ecowas said that the election was generally “encouraging” except for isolated cases of violence that disrupted voting in some states. 

More than 87 million people were eligible to vote in Saturday’s election, in the African continent’s biggest democratic exercise.